Like A Monster
by FlightofSilver
Summary: Toa. Toa had come to her home. The creature tensed angrily. Why did these "heroes" have to come now, when the life-stealers ruled and the few remaining survivors struggled for life? AU
1. Prologue

This plot bunny has been buggin' me for months. This is sort of based on an idea I got once, which was like, "What if humans co-existed with the Matoran and Toa?" and then I got another idea: "What if the Toa Nuva encountered the Visorak?" and they merged into this. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bionicle, but I do own the humans in this story.

* * *

It was the kind of day no one expected anything bad to happen. The sun shone brightly in the blue cloudless sky, while the birds sang and the children laughed in their play. The food and water issues were finally fully dealt with, and trading routes had been established, so the inhabitants of the human settlement could rest easy and toss their cares aside.

All but a few.

* * *

Anali sat alone, like she usually did, with a tablet recently imported from Metru Nui resting in her lap. However, unlike always, she stared up at the beautiful clear sky intently, appearing to forget all about everything else. Something…wasn't right. In spite of the bright sunlight and happy dispositions of everyone else in the village, there still seemed to be this small, but sinister shadow that lurked in the corner of her mind.

_**They're coming…we're coming…**_

She focused harder on the sky, as if staring at the sky could drive this feeling away. She wanted to tell someone about this, but most of the people already thought of her as some kind of antisocial gloomy-guts. So she wore darker colors and preferred to be alone. None of them knew her.

"Do you feel it?"

Anali turned sharply, her dark brown ponytail whipping her cheek. A young girl who couldn't be more than eight years old looked up at her solemnly.

"You're Quila, aren't you?" Anali asked. "Feel what?"

Quila nodded. "I feel like…something bad's going to happen. Do you feel it?"

"…Yeah. I didn't think anyone else would."

"So what do you think is going to happen?"

"I…I don't know. We could both be wrong, you know."

Quila shook her head. "No. Something will happen, I know it. I think we should leave."

Anali blinked. "W-What?"

"We should leave the island," Quila repeated with total certainty. "It's not safe here now. Something terrible is coming."

Anali furrowed her brow. Now that Quila mentioned it, that was exactly what she herself was feeling. Something was coming, and the humans' only hope was to flee.

Her mouth quirked up in a sardonic, bleak smirk. _Yeah, we're doomed. _The settlement had just been fully established. To tell everyone to run away and leave all this would be like telling a Ko-Metru Matoran to throw his telescope out the window.

"Well, why don't you go talk to your parents? Maybe they'll listen." Quila nodded and ran off. Anali looked down at the tablet in her hands. Reading some of the words inscribed on it, Anali felt a strange chill. She tried to shake it off and keep reading, but the shadow in her mind seemed to grow.

_**You are reading about them…. You should be fleeing from them…**_

Anali shook her head. _We're not going to flee. Besides, if I know about them, maybe we can fight them._

_**You cannot fight them…you can only run from them…**_

_Shut UP!_

A scream of terror shattered her thoughts and she jumped to her feet, clutching the tablet fearfully. Several young men and women rushed into town frantically, crying out incoherently. Still hanging onto the tablet, Anali rushed to the side of one of them, her older brother.

"Rynux, it's me. What is it? What's going on?"

"It's—We saw—them!"

"Who? What?"

"The…the…Visorak!"

_Visorak…Visorak…Visorak…_

_**They have come.**_

The tablet slipped from her shaking fingers and shattered at her feet. She never even noticed as she ran, somewhere, anywhere, just as long as it was away from those monsters, even as her brother fell behind her, screaming.

* * *

Please review!


	2. Dead Village

And now, the Toa Nuva appear in the story. Yay! BTW, I changed the name of this story because I was browsing the Bionicle archive and found someone else had a story with the title "Scourge of the Visorak". Just so y'all know.

Manythanks to InTheLight1396, levelupluigi, and wolf girl118 for your awesome reviews of awesomeness.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Toa or the Visorak.

* * *

**Dead Village**

Onua stepped off the boat and took in the depressing sights. The human town was deserted and shrouded in gray fog. Doors hung from their hinges and slammed open and shut in the howling, moaning wind. Most of the buildings had fallen into disrepair. The only creatures to be seen were several Rahi reptiles and bugs.

"Well, this is… a bit discouraging," he remarked.

"A bit discouraging?" Lewa repeated. "This place is…cold-dead! Humans are supposed to be lifebright and cheerhappy here! What the Karzahni happened?"

The other four Toa Nuva stepped onto the shore, wearing looks of shocked horror at the sight of the lifeless village. "What happened to everyone here?" Pohatu wondered out loud.

"Split up and search the village," Tahu ordered. "Maybe we can find out what happened."

Kopaka's lens whirred and focused on something near a nearby roof. "No need," he stated bleakly. "Look."

The others looked where he pointed and gasped. Faintly visible through the fog were greenish webs. There was no longer any doubt about what had happened to the humans.

The Visorak had come.

"Well, today just gets better and better!" Lewa commented sarcastically.

"Let's go," Tahu said. "Maybe we can find survivors."

The Toa searched anxiously, calling out frequently and peering into houses. None of them saw the shadowy figure watching them from a tall, wide rock.

* * *

The lean, powerful creature observed the beings entering her territory. So Toa had come, just like her little brother had said they would two years ago. _Too bad he's dead now. _She tensed angrily. Who did they think they were? Never coming until _now_, after the Visorak had destroyed the home and lives of the humans. These fools weren't heroes. They were USELESS.

Something behind a house near the Toa rustled. The creature's pointed ears pricked forward, and a snarl escaped her throat. Her powerful hind legs propelled her from the rocks, and she unfurled two large, leathery wings, letting them carry her to the roof of the house. The pale eyes of a hunter peered over the edge of the roof and spotted a dark brown Voparak sneaking toward the Toa, spinner already activated. The sleek, scaly form slipped silently to the ground behind the Voparak and under the cover of a large fernlike bush, where her muscles coiled in preparation for a deadly pounce and a low growl rumbled in her chest. As the Visorak heard the noise and turned, the animalistic being smirked, revealing long, sharp teeth. _Who is the prey now, wretched spider?_

_

* * *

_

Pohatu paused and frowned. "Did anyone else hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Something growled. Do you think there might still be Visorak here?"

"If they've moved on," Onua answered. "There likely aren't any other living creatures on the island. So, yes, there probably are. As well as mutants."

A loud, high-pitched _SKREEEEEK! _along with some odd ripping noises startled the Toa. Something flew out of a patch of weeds and landed near Tahu's foot. He picked it up and looked at it carefully. It was about the length of his forearm, curved, and sharp at the end. The others gathered around and stared at it curiously.

"It looks like-" Onua started.

"I don't want to know," Tahu cut him off, dropping the object and kicking it away.

"Well, at least it almost-answers your thought-question, Pohatu," Lewa joked. "There _was _a Visorak around near-here."

"That is nowhere close to funny, Lewa," Gali chided, looking around nervously. If there was something here that could…do that, what could it do to a Toa?

* * *

Yeah, this story could get a little gory. But it's mostly going to be Visorak being ripped limb from limb, so I think that's okay. :)


	3. Memories of Misery

Ta-daaaaaa! Chapter 2 of what is turning into possibly the darkest story I have ever written! XD We're on vacation now, and we couldn't get internet on our laptops until now, so I got a lot of work on different stories done.

"**Memories are a curse. Losing something you had is worse than never having it at all." ~Elam, **_**Eye of the Oracle**_**

* * *

**

**Memories of Misery**

The draconic creature paused in her ripping the Visorak to pieces to cock her head and listen to the footfalls of the Toa. They were moving around in the village, no doubt looking for some poor, frightened little human hiding in his or her house and waiting anxiously for a big, brave Toa to swoop in, wipe out the Visorak, and make everything okay.

_Well, I have news, Toa. You had your chance to be heroes two years ago, and you did nothing. All that's left now is…essentially what you see. Ruin. And everyone still alive knows nothing will never be okay again. So why don't you just go back home to your adoring little Matoran and Toa statues and magnificent legends, and leave us to our oversized killer bugs and ruined village and memories of death?_

One particularly unpleasant series of memories forced itself into her mind's eye.

* * *

She tore at the cocoon made of webbing frantically with her jagged blade. This couldn't be, this just could not be! She wasn't going to lose anyone else, not like this…

The cocoon finally ripped open, and a woman's body tumbled out, arms and legs flopping limply. The girl dropped to her knees, struggling to just keep breathing normally. She bent forward and cradled the woman, staring at her still face.

"Wake up," she whispered. "Oh please, wake up."

The woman's eyelashes fluttered. The girl held her breath desperately. The woman's eyelids lifted falteringly and she moaned.

"Mother?" The girl asked tentatively. "Do you…remember me?"

"Of course. How could I not?" the woman croaked. "Where are your brothers?"

"I haven't seen Rynux since the day they came," her daughter answered. "And Yoranu…" she bit her lip.

"Got him, too?"

The girl nodded, her slowly-coming-undone ponytail swaying slowly. Her mother gazed up at the overcast sky. "So you're all that's left of our family, then."

"Don't say that," her daughter protested. "You're gonna survive. I know it."

"Nothing…can be achieved in lying to ourselves. I don't have much time left, Ani."

The girl shook her head, closer to tears than she had ever been in years. "No," she pleaded, her voice quavering and breaking. "Please don't leave me, too. I don't want to be alone."

"If only…If only I had a choice. I love you, Anali."

Anali gulped. "L-Love you, too, Mother."

"…"

"…Mother?"

* * *

Anali and a boy her age, by the name of Iyerun, were working hard at digging her mother's grave. At least, Anali was. Iyerun, who had always had some kind of weird _thing_ for her, was trying to take advantage of their time alone by constantly interrupting his own work to tell her how pretty she was or how very alike they were or some such nonsense. Anali's only response was icy silence and an occasional hard look that would intimidate Toa Kopaka. It had been a common joke among Iyerun and his peers that Anali would be a Toa of Ice if she weren't human.

Anali was struggling to keep herself under control. She had been fighting to not break down in sobs all day, and Iyerun's far-too-cheery attempts to flirt with her while they were burying her mother were infuriating her. She wanted so badly to knock him unconscious with her shovel - and maybe his, too – but she worried that if she gave in to that emotion, she would simply break down right then and there, and that was the last thing she needed. So she contented herself with flinging shovelfuls of dirt in the direction of Iyerun's irritating voice. She heard his shovel plant itself in the ground and glimpsed his metal-shod foot resting on it. _Oh, great, _she thought in mild disgust. _Here it comes._ He was going to say something that was apparently supposed to make her swoon into his arms. Unfortunately, all it really accomplished was a large amount of dirt in his face.

A small, menacing shadow loomed in the back of her mind. Anali gasped slightly.

"Iyerun, stop messing around and help me finish this," she told Eyerun, sounding more annoyed than scared. "The Visorak could show up any minute."

"Ah, you worry too much," Iyerun replied. "Visorak wouldn't come hunting in a cemetery. Everything's already dead here."

"Except us," Anali pointed out.

"Just relax and leave the worrying about the Visorak to meEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAGH!"

"IYERUN!" Anali cried in horror as he flopped into the grave meant for her mother, paralyzed but still alive. She turned to lock eyes with a Keelerak, flanked by an Oohnorak and a Suukorak.

* * *

A fresh cocoon hung on a few threads spanning the space between two sturdier houses. The sides bulged out sporadically as its occupant desperately thrashed and struggled for freedom. It finally ripped open, relinquishing a dark flurry of legs, wings, and tail. Anali's hand finally touched earth, and she sighed in mild relief. That experience inside the barb-lined cocoon had been beyond excruciating, and it was good to feel something besides web. She lifted her head and looked down at her hands. Her heart stopped in horror. The armor-cloth that her shirt was made of had fused to her skin, creating metal scales. Her fingers were larger, and her fingernails had turned into talons. She got up to her feet, but lost her balance and instinctively flapped two limbs forward. Puzzled, she looked and saw that she had grown wings. A memory of being told her father had been a test subject for some Makuta floated through her mind, then she lifted her clawed hands to her face. _I am a Hordika.

* * *

_

Anali shook her head in an effort to stop the memories. _Time for that later, _she thought. _I have to get out of here before other Visorak show up. _She looked down at the corpse at her feet. _I'll have to leave this one and get another one later._ She bounded over the carcass and silently ran on all fours after the Toa. After all, where there were Toa, there was always something out to get them.

_And around here, that 'something' is going to be dinner._

Anali smirked. These Toa could be some real help to her yet.

* * *

Yup. Anali is now a freaky Visorak-killing Hordika. But she's still alive. That's a plus, right? Right?

Review, please!


	4. The Pack

Chapter 3! Yay! We get to meet more of my messed-up characters! Read on!

Thank you to my reviewers Leveluplewa, InTheLight1396, and the reviewer who did not leave a name. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own the Toa Nuva or Visorak. I do own the humans/ex-humans?

* * *

**The Pack**

"Does anyone else feel like we're being watched?" Pohatu asked the other Toa.

"We're on an island crawling with Visorak," Tahu snapped. "Of course we're being watched."

Gali glanced over her shoulder and stopped short at the sight of two pale glowing eyes looking back at her. The creature held her gaze for a long moment, then vanished behind a cluster of leaves.

Gali stood totally still for a minute, then backed away toward the others until she bumped into Onua. The Toa of Earth turned and looked at her questioningly. "I saw something," she whispered.

"What was it?"

"Something in the bushes. I think it might be following us."

Onua eyed the fog-shrouded overgrown shrubbery. "We have other things to worry about right now. If it shows any signs of a threat, we'll take care of it."

Gali nodded uncertainly. This place was unnerving her, to say the least.

"Visorak!" Tahu shouted. "Look out!"

Gali spun to see a Visorak perched on a web right above them, spinner activating and eyes trained on the Toa. Gali frantically debated whether to run, attack, or try to dodge the spinner when it came.

Her struggles to decide what to do turned out to be pointless. A dark shape flew out of the weeds and webs and slammed into the Visorak, breaking the web it stood on. A sickening crunch told of the spider's fate.

The Toa stood silently for a moment, then without a word moved on. Except for Lewa.

* * *

Anali's claws scratched at the dead Visorak's shell. _There's a crack here somewhere, I just know it, _she thought. _Aha!_

Her claws sank into the muscle beneath the armor, and she ripped off a large hunk of armor. She continued to rip the dead creature to pieces, eating anything organic and tossing mechanical parts. One bounced away and clattered on something metal. Anali glanced over and saw a green Toa, staring at her in horror.

Anali's eyes narrowed to pale slits and she snarled a threat. The Toa took a tentative step towards her and held out one hand. With another snarl, she turned and darted away into the fog and overgrowth.

* * *

Lewa stood and stared at the dismembered corpse of the Visorak that had threatened him and his brothers and sister. That…Hordika thing had saved them. _Was it to helpsave Toa, or just for a quick snack-meal?_

Anali darted from shadow to shadow. She had to get back quickly. They needed her there. She spread her wings, jumped up and flapped violently. She finally managed to get airborne and fly several bio before gravity took its toll and began to drag her down to the ground. She used the elastic webs spanning from trees and former guard towers to bound above the ground. A tall hill with a cave in its side rose up ahead of her. Anali smiled and picked up her pace. With a final leap and wing-flap, she glided smoothly down to the ground in front of the cave mouth. She came to a stop, folded her wings over her back, and roared a call. Another Hordika hopped out on muscular legs that appeared to bend backwards, waving two large winglike arms. Anali smiled gently, not showing so much teeth as she could have.

"_Hello, Jidu,"_ she growled in a friendly tone, using the language of the Muaka. _"How are the others? Been taking good care of them while I was gone?"_

Jidu nodded his shaggy head of hair. "Zikia managed to sit up for five minutes without any help or support," he announced in Matoran. "And…"

"_Na-yi Na-yi Na-yi!" _A small, furry creature barreled out, tripping over his big feet, going into a comically ungraceful somersault and landing in a sitting position. Anali and Jidu laughed, and Anali sat back on her haunches so she could pick up the little Hordika baby with her forelegs.

"_Hello, Pup," _she growled.

"Anali?" A weak voice called out. "Is that you?"

Anali's smile faded. "Yeah…is me," she answered. "Be rrright in."

She shifted Pup to her back, returned to walking on all fours, and entered the cave she had come to call home. A large pot filled with thick soup hung over a crackling fire. Four bales of flax were pushed together against a wall to form a bed. A small sickly girl lying on it twisted her blond head to see the approaching Hordika. "Zikia," Anali rumbled. "How have you been feeling?"

"Stronger," Zikia answered, then coughed violently.

Anali moved to stand beside the human girl and helped her sit up with her wing. She smiled softly. "You'll get even strongerrr someday," she reassured the girl.

Zikia nodded with a brave, weak smile, allowing Anali to lower her carefully down onto her bed. "Rrrest," she growled gently. Zikia closed her eyes, and her breaths grew deep and even. Anali sighed and sat down at the cave mouth. The human village here had been reduced to three mutants and a bedridden girl, and the oldest was seventeen. Anali gazed out at the sinking suns, wondering.

Why did it have to be this way? Why couldn't an adult have been able to survive as long as they had? Why did Pup have to grow up without knowing who his parents were? Why did Jidu have to grow up so fast when he was still a child? Why did Zikia have to be so weak, yet be the only human who had survived so long after being freed from Visorak sleep? And why did Anali have to care so much about each of them? Watching Zikia cough so hard she vomited, feeling Pup snuggle against her when he was scared or tired, hearing Jidu's stifled crying in the middle of the night when he relived the death of his parents in dreams, all of it made Anali's heart ache. And knowing that all three of them trusted her to take care of them and make everything turn out alright…

She loved and hated the feeling it gave her.

She didn't deserve to be looked up to like this. At least that was what she had thought two years ago, when she had saved Jidu from a Muaka, and the mutated boy became her shadow. Things had changed since then.

Whether she deserved it or not, these kids were her responsibility and her family, and she loved each of them like she had loved her brothers. _They're my pack, _Anali thought grimly. _And no one, Visorak, human, or Toa is taking any of them from me. I __**will not**__ lose this family, too._

* * *

Awww, Anali's got a nice side! Sort of. Whatcha think of my having Anali speak Muaka? I'm sure that's possible, since Nokama spoke to a Muaka in its language, and the fliers apparently have an official language. Next chapter, I think I'll go more into the other survivors' backstories.

Please leave a nice review!


	5. Predators and Fools

Thanks to leveluplewa, wolfgirl118, and InTheLight1396 for reviewing.

* * *

**Predators and Fools**

"It ate a Visorak?" Tahu repeated, grimacing at the thought. "This place is getting to your head, Lewa."

"I'm trueserious!" Lewa snapped. "Go looksee for yourself. The body is still there…or the body part-pieces."

"Lewa!" Gali chided, her mask looking a little paler than usual. Lewa drooped his head. "Truesorry."

Onua frowned. "That doesn't make sense. Most Rahi are instinctively repulsed by Visorak. Why would a Hordika eat them?"

"We don't know the Hordika gave in to Rahi instincts," Pohatu suggested.

Tahu raised an eyebrow. "Right, that's why it rips Visorak to pieces and eats them."

"Maybe it ate everything else on the island?"

"It didn't. I've seen other Rahi on this island," Kopaka cut in.

Tahu sighed. "Look, we'll worry about this later. Right now, we should keep looking for human survivors that may have escaped mutation. And survive long enough to get them out of this place."

* * *

"Anali?" Jidu came up behind her. "I saw a boat land on the shore. Did you see who…?"

Anali nodded. "I did. There are Toa roaming on our island now." She glanced at the young Hordika boy to see his response.

"Toa?" Jidu repeated, as if not quite believing her. "Here? On this island?"

"Yes."

"While we're still alive?"

Anali rolled her eyes. "Yes."

"This is unbelievable!" Jidu exclaimed in amazement. "I never thought I would ever see a real Toa in person! How many are there? What team is it?"

Anali glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and shrugged. "Six, and why should I care?"

"Some Toa are more powerful than others," Jidu replied. "You wouldn't want to underestimate them."

Anali sighed and conceded. "You have a point. But there shouldn't be any need to worry about how powerful they are, not if we keep out of their way," she stated. "And that is what we are going to do. Jidu, I don't want you or Pup leaving the cave until they leave the island. Take good care of Zikia and try to keep quiet if you hear footsteps. We can't let them find you." Anali took a few steps away from him and towards the doorway, stretching her neck forward to survey the area around the cave opening before leaving the shelter and spreading out her wings.

"Why?"

Anali paused and turned to look at the Hordika boy. "Why what?"

"Why can't we let the Toa find us?" Jidu asked.

Anali swallowed and answered, "Because…I'll explain tonight." She launched off from the rocks and circled around to call, "I'll be back tonight!" before flying away to keep an eye on those Toa.

* * *

Tahu stood in what must have once been the village square, before the Visorak had come and apparently wiped out all traces of civilized humans. The others had split up to search all the houses for some survivor, though they all seemed to know without saying that there was almost no hope of finding anyone.

He strode out into the outskirts, lost in his thoughts. He turned his head and saw Gali standing outside a nearby hut, holding something in her hand and staring into space, blankly. He had never seen her like that before.

He walked over to her side and gently put his hand on her shoulder.

Gali started slightly and swiveled her head to see who had surprised her, and relaxed when she saw who it was.

"Tahu," she cleared her throat. "I didn't see you there."

Tahu looked down at the limp thing made of cloth that Gali kept grasped in her fist. "What's that?" he asked.

Gali slowly opened her hand, revealing a little rag doll, staring blankly up at the sky. "It's the closest thing to a human I could find," she admitted. "I was just…thinking."

Gali was always thinking. "About what?"

"All of this!" Gali gestured widely, indicating the webs, the deserted homes, the scattered human belongings. "I can't help but feel like we're too late to do any good." She gazed down at the child's toy in her hand. "There must have so much fear and sorrow whenever the Visorak attacked. And we came too late to stop any of it." She tilted her hand so the doll began to slide off.

"Don't say that," Tahu snapped. "We don't know that it's too late." He grabbed the doll before it could fall and pushed it into Gali's hand. "There has to be someone on this island we can help."

* * *

Anali soared over the deserted village, scanning for six particular spots of color. _There they are._ With a beat of her wings and flap of her tail, she sharply turned and deftly plunged into the cover of the scraggly leaves in a nearby tree, barely rustling them. She landed solidly on a thick, sturdy limb, digging her claws into the bark. She watched them move about thoughtfully. She wanted them off her island, and wanted to do something to make their stay shorter without the risk of getting caught.

A small sound pricked the air, and her ears twitched and turned slightly to listen. Some poor Rahi was in distress, most likely caught in a Visorak web. Without another thought, she launched off again towards the source of the sound.

She landed a few bio away from the village. There was a small Rahi reptile struggling in a web. Anali watched dispassionately as it wriggled and thrashed, only to get more entangled, which prompted it to struggle even more violently, which got it in a worse situation. Anali couldn't help but wonder how this creature had survived so long when it was so pitifully, miserably dumb.

She turned and disappeared into the foliage. It appeared that she had abandoned the little Rahi, but her pale eyes remained fixed on the squirming creature as she settled down and waited.

She didn't have to wait long. A red Visorak approached and scrutinized the creature. Anali coiled to spring and waited intensely. Any second now…

With a roar, she pounced on the Visorak and tore it apart with her claws, barely giving the beast a chance to squeal in dismay before she ended its life. Once it was hardly recognizable, Anali turned her attention to the little reptile who had served as bait, which immediately started babbling and blubbering in terror. Anali grunted and hissed at it, and it calmed down a bit while Anali used her claws to clear away the webs around it. Once it was freed, Anali snarled deep in her throat and faked a lunge. The creature skittered away in fright. With the Rahi gone and Visorak dispatched, the Hordika could return her attention to the Toa. She looked over at the remains of the Visorak, then deliberately walked straight through it, so she would track its spilled body fluids to the village.

The Toa would find it, she knew. And when they did, she intended this to be a message: There was something on this island that had absolutely no fear of Visorak. A creature that had no qualms about killing. And if they made a wrong move, did anything to make her think they were a threat to herself or her pack, they would die as gruesome a death as this miserable creature had.

She wanted to give them a taste of the horror she and the others had experienced for nearly two years.

Jidu's question suddenly echoed in her mind. _"Why?" _

Anali sighed deeply as she walked. For a Hordika, Jidu was so trusting and naïve. He had practically attached himself to her when she first met him. If a creature even remotely resembled a human, he immediately trusted it. With Anali, it had worked out well, but with these Toa…

Anali began to put together her answer to Jidu's question. If the Toa found them, they would be taken away. Anali had read enough tablets to know plenty about how Matoran reacted to strange "Rahi". They would be locked up, separated, maybe put in the Metru Nui Archives. Pup would for sure be viewed as an animal; he had become a Hordika when he was a baby and knew nothing about what being human and "civilized" meant, not even how to walk on two legs or speak and understand Matoran. They would probably put him in the Archives, or maybe he would be given to some Turaga as a pet until he grew too big for a Turaga to handle, _then _put in the Archives.

Zikia would probably be put through endless studies and experiments to see how she had escaped mutation, if she had received any venom at all, all sorts of things. And that was assuming she survived the trip off the island.

Anali had a harder time imagining what would happen to Jidu and herself. Jidu could still speak Matoran very well, he had grown fluent in several Rahi languages as well, and of the three of them, Anali thought he had gotten the lightest dose of venom. Jidu had received almost no beastly urges, no complications, just a new way of walking and a fear of being left alone. Anali froze. That was what would happen if the Toa found them. Pup would go from being just Pup to being doomed to live his life in a cage, Zikia would be hurt and most likely die, and Jidu would be alone again.

She was so caught up in her thoughts that she never noticed the glittering eyes watching her from above. Not until it was too late.

* * *

As the day drew to a close, Jidu paced at the mouth of the cave, keeping one eye on Pup, who was chewing on a mechanical Visorak part, and the other out watching for Anali.

"Where's…Anali?" Zikia rasped. Jidu strangely wanted to panic.

"She flew off. I think she wants to make sure nothing's going to attack while we're asleep," he replied. "I think she'll be back soon."

An inhuman, bloodcurdling shriek erupted from near the old village. Jidu went clammy in horror and Pup started to whimper.

Zikia gasped. "Was that….? That was…Anali…wasn't it?"

* * *

Okay, I don't have anything to say. Other than this is really starting to look like a T-rated fic. . Though, if my (incomplete) mental plot outline serves me correctly, this could be the last incident in which a Visorak gets gored.

Also, I need to adjust my sleeping habits.

Please review and tell whether you think I should bump up the rating.


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